


Home at Last (Following a Cloud)

by ViciousRhythm



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben is friends with Finn and Poe, Emotions, Established Relationship, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/M, Shocking I know, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, after the war, it's not an au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6018712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViciousRhythm/pseuds/ViciousRhythm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben struggles to find the perfect way to celebrate Valentine's Day with Rey - who may not even understand the holiday in the first place. It's not going to turn out like the cliched candlelit dinner, that's for sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home at Last (Following a Cloud)

**Author's Note:**

> This somehow got more feelsy than I intended. I'm blaming my friend who gave me the idea, and her dramatic Irish blood.

Even after defecting to the Resistance, Ben Solo is under no impression that anyone trusts or likes him, except maybe a couple of people. There’s Poe, whose friendship is still a staggering mystery to Ben. They had been childhood friends, but Ben is fully aware he deserves Poe’s anger possibly more than anyone else on base – excluding his own mother. Still, the man’s shockingly forgiving nature has combined with Ben’s sickeningly genuine remorse to put the nasty business of Ben _torturing him_ in the past, somehow.

Finn has also found the good grace to forgive Ben for his past sins, which is somewhat less shocking. He’d actually been the first to reach out to Ben, reminding him that Finn was once on the shaky ground of being a turncoat himself. In the past, Ben had chided himself for letting the former FN-2187 escape punishment for disobeying orders on Jakku, but he’s grateful for the weakness now. It’s likely only by the grace of Finn’s interference that Rey hadn’t put an end to Ben entirely on some dark night in the halls of the Rebel base.

And then there is Rey. Ben’s obsession for so long, his enemy, the girl who stunned and intrigued him as Kylo Ren, and leaves him breathless as Ben Solo. ‘Rocky start’ did not begin to cover the first weeks of their acquaintance as allies. The only time Ben had resented the order forbidding him access to any form of weapon was when he was alone with Rey, if for no other reason than fear for his life. She’d been in ardent opposition to his walking freely, and for good reason. He’s still not sure which was the stronger factor in her eventual acceptance of him – Finn and Poe’s opinion, Ben’s own meek acceptance of the verbal punishment she dished out, or exhausting her own anger. Either way, they stand on very different grounds now, and Ben is forced to seek help from her two best friends on this day.

Ben has no idea what he’s supposed to do for Valentine’s Day. It’s an old tradition, but one that people still cling to, as his mother says, because love and hope endure even in the darkest times. He’s not so sure he ascribes to that notion, but either way, he wakes up one day and realizes the holiday isn’t too far off, and that he has no clue what to do for the woman currently asleep on his shoulder. It’s a very quiet panic. Honestly, Ben isn’t even sure Rey knows what Valentine’s Day _is_ , but if she does and he screws it up, he’s going to feel awful.

So he goes looking for Poe and Finn. They’re bound to have some better ideas than him about how to be romantic, and Poe at least has a better handle on what resources are even available on base. Rey is always saying how Finn is the sweetest guy she knows, which Ben would be annoyed about if he weren’t so completely aware that he will never be called ‘sweet’ himself. It’s just not in him. But he can use the help at this point. A cheesy four-line poem about roses and violets is not going to cut it.

“Do you know how to cook?” is the first thing Finn says after he’s explained the issue.

He doesn’t, but they both offer to help him learn, or at least get one recipe down well enough to be presentable. Finn makes the good point that food is kind of a big deal for Rey even now. After her years on Jakku, Rey had been anything but picky for a while, but when she realized the food wasn’t going away, she became something of a connoisseur of, well, food in general.

To Poe’s extreme amusement and Ben and Finn’s frustration, it turns out Ben can’t boil water without some kind of disaster taking place. They try to find something simple, but it’s a lost cause and the trio is forced to consider alternatives. Poe suggests something classically romantic – maybe a picnic or something where they can be alone. It’s a decent suggestion, but they spend so much time alone in empty stretches of grass, meditating under Luke’s direction, that the idea doesn’t feel right. Finn’s idea for a romantic scavenger hunt is even worse, if only because Ben rankles immediately at the idea of putting together a _scavenger_ hunt for a woman who he used to refer to derisively as ‘scavenger’.

They go around in circles until eventually, Ben has an idea of his own. It may be complete shit, really, he’s not sure, but he thinks it’s a good one, and it plays to his strengths. There’s quite a bit of preparation involved, and Ben almost feels bad about spending so much time gently ducking Rey, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.

February rolls around (or at least their approximation of it on this planet), and Rey is so frustrated with him, she actually ends up kidnapping him for an entire evening. Ben’s not sure Valentine’s Day is even necessary after that – if he wanted proof that they’re good together, there it was. Still, he’s not with Rey because of her ability to turn off his brain with sex, though that’s a pretty great side-effect. He’s with her for the brilliant, stubborn person she is, and his whole plan is about showing her how special she is, how loved. The plan will commence as intended.

He clears it with Leia and Luke before telling Rey he has a surprise for her off-world, loading the both of them onto the _Falcon_. As far as Ben knows, Rey has never been to Coruscant, though he’s made the trip more than once in the last weeks himself. The way her eyes go wide at the sprawling city planet says he’s right in his assumption.

“It’s so _big_ ,” Rey breathes, eyes on the speeding skylane traffic.

“You have no idea,” Ben mutters, earning him a look. He won’t tell her the many hours he’s spent here recently, or about his now intimate knowledge of just how large the population of Coruscant really is. Knowing the planet is densely populated and trying to scour their public records looking for a specific name are two very different things.

They set down near the public records office Ben found on his second trip, and by now, the women at the front desk know him well enough to let him pass. Rey is growing more suspicious as they walk further into the echoing halls, but Ben keeps silent.

“You’re taking me to a library?” Rey asks disbelievingly when he leads them through a doorway that opens to reveal a room that is nothing but standing stations for holopads, divided into sections to house the crush of information.

“A hall of records,” he corrects her. “And just one…specific part, really.”

It’s only in this moment, after hours of manual searching and then reaching out to whatever help the Force had to offer, that Ben thinks maybe this wasn’t a great idea. Rey has certainly settled in with the Resistance, adopted Finn and Poe and Luke and Leia as her new family. Perhaps this will only reopen old wounds and he should turn back now, scrabble together a new plan.

The voice in his head, still somewhat unfamiliar and belonging to the man he was named for offers its faint support. _She deserves to know_.

“I wanted to show you,” he starts again, haltingly. “I found who your parents are.”

It takes a second for what he’s said to actually hit Rey, he can see the impact almost in slow motion. Her face is a blank mask of disbelief before her eyes slowly fill with tears, and Ben hopes to every power that it’s not because she’s upset with him.

“ _Ben._ ” Her voice comes out a rasp, and she swipes at her eyes before taking his hand. “Show me.”

He leads her to the correct station, which he’d only found through Obi Wan’s guidance. It’s a bit of a walk, set more than halfway down the hall, and it’s a mostly silent walk, Rey trying to control her tears and Ben unsure if there’s anything he can say that will help.

“It took a while,” he says, calling the holopad to life. “Coruscant really is huge. But I had some help.”

Rey gives him a curious look as the machine blinks awake.

“Your grandfather was very strong in the Force,” Ben tells her, his fingers flipping through options until he finds what he wants. “I’m sure you could reach him if you care to try. He is a bit…esoteric. I think that’s where Luke gets it, honestly.”

“What do you mean by that?” Rey asks, leaning to watch over his shoulder. “Did Luke know my grandfather?”

“He trained with your grandfather.” He can see the connection click as her expression goes disbelieving again. He finally locates the file he’s looking for, where there is a record of a baby girl, born on Coruscant to parents who claimed Coruscanti and Mandalorian descent. There are names for her to follow, a whole history to rediscover, though Ben had tracked down the skeleton of it himself.

“Obi Wan Kenobi had a son.” Her eyes are locked on the screen, but she’s listening. “Your mother was a pilot. That’s- I didn’t go much further than that. I thought you should learn about them before anyone else. But.”

And here he pauses to turn her toward him.

“They loved you,” he says with certainty. “They were good people and something had to have happened to keep them from coming back. There’s every evidence they cared so much about you, they must’ve tried to come back for you.”

Rey’s face collapses under his assertion, and she follows, falling forward to wrap her arms around his middle and bury her face in his chest. Ben holds her, reflexively and because it can’t be easy, but he hopes there’s value in what he’s found for her.

“You are so loved, Rey,” he says quietly, mouth pressed against her hair. “By so many people. There was never a time you weren’t loved.”

“Thank you,” she says, muffled into his shirt, before pulling back. “Thank you, Ben.”

He has to kiss her then, for comfort if nothing else, and it’s a gentle thing. They’re far beyond the point where each kiss begged for more, easy with each other and she sighs into him, holding his face lightly between her hands. His eyes are still closed when she puts a centimeter of space between their lips to speak.

“I love you.”

It’s the first time either of them have said it, though he’s sure they both know the feeling is there, and he’s very well fit to burst in his rush to reply.

“I love you, too,” he mutters, nearly slurring it in his urgency to kiss her again. There’s a gravity to it that doesn’t feel like two young people stealing a moment in the quiet of the halls, but he imagines that’s what they must look like, hands and thoughts wrapped around each other.

So maybe Ben isn’t good at romance, he can’t put together a fancy meal or write a love poem or anything, but he can give her this, and it feels like enough.


End file.
